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the, the, every generation has a journalist to whom most people can point as being transformative in world events . here in the united states, we still talk about bob woodward and carl bernstein, who broke the news of the watergate scandal which led to the resignation of president richard nixon. robert parry broke the story of the iran contra affair, and seymour hersh told the world about them. ely, mastercard, during the vietnam war? well, there's another giant of journalism who died recently. and today we're going to remember his life. i'm john to reaku. welcome to the whistle blowers the

. 2 2 2 2 john killed your wasn't australian journalist, writer, scholar and documentary filmmaker. he was a student of us, british and australian foreign policy, which he considered to be driven by expansionist agendas. pills you had a very long career in journalism 1st as a reporter, then as an editor and all the while. as a filmmaker, he produced more than 50 documentaries, many of which were highly awarded, including one with the best of the british version of the academy awards. pilcher became a household name in the 1970s when he secretly entered cambodia. in the aftermath of the overthrow of pol pot and broke the story of the cambodian genocide, which became known as the killing fields, those stories and the accolades that went with them. we're just the beginning for john pilcher. he became a frequent consultant for television news programs on the events of the day. his books became international best sellers, and he spent in years as a friend, colleague,

and advisor to would give weeks co founder julian assange. today we will celebrate the life of john pilcher with 2 friends and former colleagues were joined 1st by jo lorio. he's the editor in chief of consortium news founded by the late robert perry . and he's a former journalist for the boston globe. the wall street journal. and the times of london. joe, thanks so much for being with us. no problem, john. going to see joe, let's start with your own personal experience with john pilcher. the 2 of you were a long time friends where and how did you meet and when did you begin working together on issues like wiki, leaks? i've known john for about 60, i've knew of his work, of course, for many years, for decades. extremely, a big admire like so many millions of people and i got to know him when i became a detective sort. he moves back in 2018. so about 6 years ago he knew bob, harry, he was on the committee of the month of gal horner ward, and bob,

the one that award. so they and he really appreciated, would bought, did, and the consortium is was and when i became editor i invited him to become a board member, which he did. and then i began interviewing with him on our webcast several times and i met with him several times in uh, in sydney. well, i was there, we met at various occasions. we actually 1st time we met in person was at a, an event for julian, a sons we bought, spoke and an outdoor event in martin place in sydney. and i had dinner with him at a rolling club in sydney. john was a fanatical, a fan of rowing. he grew up and was a roller and long term growing contracts where his reception for his funeral on tuesday was here in london at the thames rowing club. so and he was an extraordinary manny, made it look easy. he made it look easy, john and i can tell you hasn't but took practitioner of the same profession. it is

not easy to why he did it. i think so many great things that could be said about him. but one of the most important things for me is how he connected the decisions of what he called impeccable politicians in london and brussels in washington and the suffering that their decisions caused and mostly poor countries in developing world. john pilcher had a huge impact on the way the world saw the genocide in cambodia. he produced a documentary after his investigative work there called year 0. the silent death of cambodia. that film was shown in schools all across the u. k. and viewers spontaneously donated some $45000000.00 and solicited to help rebuild cambodia after watching that film tell us about the work that he did there. and about the results of that work in cambodia and abroad. his most important film, probably of the 60 films that he made was about him body. the 1st when i came body, you're 0, which the british film, the students name, one of the greatest,

talking film, documentaries of the 20th century. and it certainly isn't. there is a section in there where he looks into the camera and, and says that it says that very thing that the decisions of these, uh uh, he's showing children. cambodian children suffering is just a heart wrenching film to see this was right after the camera rouge had been driven out by the vietnamese who intervened to stop the cambodian genocide, the only real evidence or example of responsibility to protect that. i know if they actually did that, the v and amazing, intervene for that reason to stop the killing of the kid. my roof backed by the united states and britain. and i guess what, they were opposed to the vietnam. he's doing that. and john looks in the camera with these children dying. it's hard to look at. and he says, these children are at the end of a process, begun by implacable politicians who took the district as a great distance from the results of this savagery. this style may have been

different from poll part, but the effect of the same, the bombs. i liked following rain, wrote a child and 1973 a year in which the tonnage of bomb dropped in cambodia exceeded by half. the entire tonnage dropped on japan in world war 2. the price of a cambodian life was incidentally a $100.00 compensation of any quotes of british journals who says that print cno. i said that the 2 men most responsive for the tragedy in cambodia today arm and as 1979 late seventy's or mister nixon and doctor kissinger, expanding the warrant to my country. they killed a lot of americans and many other people and they treated and they, sorry they created became a roof. so this is to me, the essence of jump through all this work is that he did not leave alone. the decisions of the leaders of the west and the in the suffering that they caused, that the corporate media establish me that he was

a part of seriously worked to cover up to break that link between the decisions of the west and leaders and the suffering on the ground junk pills or seem to have something of a soft spot for the little guy for the oppressed, for the downtrodden. we saw that in cambodia, but he was also outspoken in his support and activism for us really as indigenous people. he long criticized australia as government for its treatment of the countries indigenous people, which he compared to south africa's apartheid system. and he specifically criticized australia as quote, the only developed country whose government has been condemned as racist by the united nations committee on the elimination of racial discrimination and quote, what impacted his work have on the rights of native australians. well, that's a good question. i think you surely it was part of a movement as he described in his book, a secret country where there was something really that was similar to what happened in the united states with the american indian movement where it became

a front and center issue. again, there's never been a treaty between australia and any of the indigenous people. i liked the treaties at the us had and broke. so many native tribes as they started to organize and they had a voice. there weren't changes in government uh, government changes that helped give them more rights and i think jumped towards your plate and instrumental role and public pressure that was brought on the government to make those changes. and i think he needs to be applauded for about his, from utopia, about indigenous is just extraordinary. and it points out what a great interview he was. you know, i'm, i make the argument that his greatness a lot of his greatness just because of the cowardice and the laziness of his contemporaries. he just did his job as a reporter and they, they did their job of supporting what the rules of the west wants want of the people to know. and john pilcher, when he sat down with a c,

i a operative and he presented with the facts of the suffering and celia and causes. and that's a very famous club is going around on twitter again after john died. and, and he also sat down with a government official in, in australia where they found, we found that they had lied the government fruits and lied about rates by a bridge, any man in a certain town. and he exposed that and he was able to confront as a person, has done many andrews myself. that is the hard, it seem to be to do for me anyway, when you get the evidence against a room door and then you present and you confront them with it and they're going to be very honest about you. and he was very calm. the way he presented that not only did he stand up for the rights of, of originates in australia but also a working class. the people in australia and england in 1971. he did a film uh for i tv. it's called conversations with a working man, and he followed the life of it's a, it's a half, it's a, i think it's

a 45 minute film about this guy, john walker. and he works in a di factory and i'm believe will be horrible conditions and he's involved in the union and morning wanting to strike. and john really reveals how awful the life of a working class man was backed in 1971. and when i gave a speech in front of the new york, uh, the concert bridge, consulate in new york and assigned rally, i blamed britain for being a co participant with united states in imperial adventures. they aren't the portal that most people think they are drawn, wrote me an e mails praising my speech, which tells you that is really something to get an email from tom pilcher, appraising your work and then you i told him that i had just seen this film and he said he was one of his favorite films and we discussed whether this man might still be alive. and while i'm in britain, i'm going to go and try to find him or his defendants, people in that town in yorkshire, a as a way to see how it would impact jump fields or had there. so john was the way

ahead of the game and criticizing neal liberal policies of boucher, he wrote about 5 of the stories in the new york times in the early 19 eighties period. one factor took over and that was his theme. what's coming to destroy the lives of many working people and the, this is, this is the wrong way to go. and of course, this was just one that was getting started. and i want to mention at the new york times that publish those articles. they didn't write one word about jump hilcher in terms of an arbitrary and this just shows you how the main stream really marginalized, john pilcher, and really, as he said, he had a space in growing up in the mainstream media as a reporter with the daily mirror and he was all over the world reporting, and then he made us feel and he had an extraordinary period where they, but there was a jump total was allowed to work within the main stream. and then it closed down. and he was driven out. guardian got rid of him, the new states and got rid of him. and he started writing for independent media

like consorting moves. and he really liked consorting moves and that really made me happy too. he said it was like reading a real newspaper, the kind of newspaper that he knew and he wrote for growing up. john often put himself in danger when chasing a story. one thing that many people don't know, including many who have followed his work, is that he actually snuck into east timor during the brutal indonesian occupation of that country and shot a documentary called death of a nation. the timor conspiracy. that documentary was so well received, that it contributed to an international outcry that eventually led to the withdrawal of indonesia from east timor and to the country's independence. but the australian foreign minister at the time, gareth evans condemned john saying, quotes tells you or has a track record of distorted sensationalism, mixed with sanctimony and quote. that statement is interesting to me because it doesn't deny

a single thing that john killed you said in the documentary. so why were so many insiders and government officials, so anti pills or what was it that they were so afraid of to the truth? the truth about what they were doing. and john went and found it, and it wasn't easy. but he did it and that's what he was after. and he would sneak into a country like that. he would go to cambodia right after the king. my roof left. he was there on the ground, you showed the people and the suffering. and then he confronted, as i said, the government officials, they don't want journalists like that. they don't want journalists, you know, the world courageous should never be put in front of the journalist of journals for really doing their job. but if there's 2 journalists in the last half century that have deserved that, of course it's john field. you and his good friend julian sondra, which he's a great, great, was a great defender and a great friend off. and john ad truly is really lost and another friend after losing daniel ellsberg last year. so john pilcher did what western

governments pretend. journalism journalist should do they say they defend freedom of the press, but never want them to really do because when they really do, they start to condemn. that'd be classified. you carry out a piece of the day about certain documents that are going to be classified british government documents that showed the jump told you were certainly on their radar and they weren't. they were upset with him. they didn't like what he was doing and they want to do whatever they can and how you're going to put jump builder in jail . right. so they've got julia saunders in jail now, you couldn't put pilcher in jail, but you can get them fired or blackballed and blacklisted away from the mainstream . he was a star report, a growing up at the mirror and he and in cinema and on television. and they found a way to silence him, and i was happy that the consortium is one of the outlets that he was able to continue to credibly put forward work right up until the last stage. jo, laurie,

a journalist and editor. thank you so much for being with us today. we appreciate you coming on the show and talking about your friend and your former colleague john pills, or you're welcome john. to talk to you we're going to take a short break and when we come back we'll discuss john hill. just work on behalf of wiki leaks, and julian assigns with another of his friends. randy critical. don't go away. the there's no end in sight over how you're going to continue to destroy the earth. is the case for the med, most of the people. i tried to go to the gym, but i'm certainly not ready to fight russia. this is also of soon. this is the 3rd world will receive re washing as for so the funder line likes to say, we have the tools while we just start with stability and business deals, which allow me something living on my have very close propaganda. you know price

here in new york. i think we don't know the aftermath any time that you're not allowed to ask questions, you should ask all of the questions. some more questions ask the better. the answer is will be the welcome back to the list of lawyers and john to reaku. we're happy to be joining by randy. critical. randy is a long time comedian and social justice activist. he's a former director of the william and counselor fund for social justice and the host of the radio show live on the fly, which airs every friday afternoon from 3 to 4 pm on new york's w. b. a. i radio were speaking about the green john pills or the australian journalist editor, author and filmmaker who passed away in december 2023. randy, thanks so much for being with us. hey, it's great to be back. it's always great to be on. we do. john. thank you for inviting me once again. randy, i only got to know john codes or late in his life and in the context of his support

for julian assign, jen for would give weeks tell us about the relationship between pilcher and assigns . how did they become acquainted and was john would be like supporter from the beginning? yes, i was totally amazed, mesmerized by the revolutionary journalistic work of joining decides. go away back . i think before 2010, i've been review them 30 times over the last 8 years and he goes way back. he gave a julian and 2010 the prestigious mark the gal horn award. even though it's, there's no video of it, but he's talked about it many times. he was very close friends with a journalist, martha gal horn. and he was like the main person that ran the gal horn institute or whatever organization. it's called and they gave out this for stages

award. i think one last time was when i saw you, they gave it to robert perry, so it's rarely given out. but julian, he met way back then and they became great friends. he visited a many times once he was ensconced inside that the ecuadorian embassy and was really was such an enthusiastic supporter then defender a guy hard supporter and defender and up until his dying breath. you know, i had my last email was on october, october 17th. i think, and it was saying that a, you know, gotta keep binding, keep finding me, keep sliding and he did a, so it really spanned a long period of time, you know, over a decade or 14 years, they were french. one of the very consistent criticisms that pilcher had over the last decade and a half of his life was that the media in general either were not supporters of

assange and wikileaks, or were actively hostile to assigned. and we get leaks despite the fact that they regularly used information revealed by wiki leaks and they're reporting. what was the response among media people to those accusations, or did they ever respond to him? i don't think they responded. you know, people that the guardian did respond people shouldn't be seated on or whatever. i mean, she wouldn't do shows they one year tail on eric melbourne. wanted me to get him on the show and he refused to have anything to do with that because he thought they were all seriously complicit in this, this persecution of discharge. and either by omission, are by direct action with their journalism. sure. they exploited is work for financial reasons, but it did not defend him. and so john was, uh, was like, 2nd by they have congress see, but not surprised because you know,

he called the big lie. whitker b would say, what they're doing right now is what gerbils called the big wide. and you know, john was one of the few people that for 6 decades was able to operate people in a commercial. uh, yeah, institution like itc. even the guardian in 2014, he was writing, were making these films. and you know, all those programs he did in all of the awards and he won a but still, his conscience guided his work and his great body of work. it's at the, it's a british library, ensconced there. he's 62, the films of this man was the most productive and the most honest and serious journalist of my lifetime. and that's over 6 decades in there, in the united states pills record at some controversy back in 20162000. and 17,

when he said in speech is that donald trump was less dangerous than hillary clinton was. he said that trump was more pragmatic and was not beholden to the anti russia, anti china, pro israel forces that are seen to run u. s. foreign policy. culture was criticized for throwing his lot in with trump, who was more conventionally right wing than clinton was. tell us about that. while you looked at the record of the bill clinton, the record of obama, a record of l. b. j. a many, you know, the democrats have been the war party and the republicans too, but he was right about a trump supporter. but he was right in saying that that, that trump was less dangerous on, on an international level. then maybe a domestic level. you may be different, but on an international level, he felt not withstanding trump's support, you know,

his support of israel moving the embassy to jerusalem. but over all in 2016, he was, you know, and i was like 1st kind of shocked by that when i saw it. but the alternative was hillary clinton, who, i mean, take a look at her. he looked at what she did in hunters with uh, you know, uh, i forgot her name birth uh, birth uh, uh, the labor leader. she was murdered in kilograms of all that crew, libya, syria. and she was surrounded by a secretary of state and she was gonna bring them into the old office, victoria, no one, jake sullivan, and tony blinking types. so he know that the, that she was a real con, were truck is not a neil con, which has international implications. so for a person that lives on the other side of the planet, yes truck was it much lesser than the 2 e. bullshit. that's how you would describe them, but it's certainly not a stretch guy was going to break up now. you know,

you know, imagine if nato has really been broken up, we wouldn't have the situation that's going on and ukraine today. so, you know, going back to bill clinton, the bombing of yugoslavia, and they don't really needs to be abolished. and trump, uh, you know, was an anti nato individual. and so that's where john picked it up for australia and send for people don't shine on people in africa. and the baby's trump was less dangerous. he was right. so he had a stake in that election. and hillary clinton was not the one that he thought would be beneficial to the world. john pilcher had a long life and a long and respected career. give us your thoughts on his legacy and on those people and issues that he inspired. well, you know, it's very difficult to sum up i've, i've done a 3 already tribute to john pill. jerry, one was 2 hours now. there's an hour piece on that, mike done? yeah,

i mean the legacy we're talking about the we're talking about the beethoven of journalism, the, the einstein of journalism, the bill cuts john brown, a journalist, then he's, he was definitely a. yeah, a long uh what you would call me a little call the brown a mediator. i mean that's there was the 6 decade so work. plus he started, he was 19, you didn't quit. it was 84 when he died. no one compiled anything like john pilcher and no one ever. we're talking about 62 brilliant films, hundreds of interviews and he did a hundreds of thousands of articles and 20 books. i'm a big guy has a, it's the white house of are the library of alexandria, a type of material that john pilled, his legacy left behind. and i just don't see anyone close to him in terms of their production as a journalist, as a war correspondent, guy,

the workforce funded as well. uh, and as a, as a filmmaker in a me buying as most of the films himself raising the money. and it was all for causes that were important rented be nicaragua in the eighty's, whether it be in the nation, in the sixty's as to whether it be a viet nam who was there. and 19 seventies a quiet knew me and. and then it was, and he was in a pet a palace died many times into the tube is 2 of his documentaries, palestine is still the issue. and then camp bodya. he went to cambodia 4 or 5 times the 4 or 5 documentaries on indigenous april of uh, australia, pork a jack one of the type of but stories about the or, and the uh on wanted in, in the london and the in prisons in london. i mean, i could,

the engine joined the sides. of course he was the meal zohler for drivers, but for assigns that same type of ashen and stick to it to minutes that never waned all the way through. he was, even though he was in bad health, and i got emails from him over the last year that i'm looking at the pneumonia at one time, but he was still taken all of that energy to try to save asides. they'll never be any one like john field you're. i've loved the guy and i get emotional thinking about it. i had a great friendship with them. i spent the day at his house, london, the 2017. when i saw us on june the may he always make you have a great sense of humor and a appreciative sense of humor. indeed, always talk about the bad coffee that he may, buddy into the guy was so humane and he loved nature. he had to call it is uh, i forgot when he called it, but in the backyard uh, in,

in this house is quite house in london, yet this huge garden, his pride and joy is what he called it. a john killenger was a real sure man to terry and, and he hated oppression as much as john brown, andy and he worked with this pen to try to stop wherever reared its ugly head. so i, you know, there's not enough words. there's not enough time to really describe john pillage. it's one of those things. so it's a like a civil war series by ken burns, you'd have to do on john pilcher and the work that he accomplished. randy credit goes, thank you so much for coming on with us today. appreciate that. the author kilroy oldster once wrote that the greatest challenge in life is to be our own person and to accept that being different is a blessing and not a curse. a person who knows who they are lives a simple life by eliminating from their orbits. anything that is not align with his or her overriding purpose in values. john pilcher was the proverbial light by which

others could see his honest the dedication and hard work for what gave him such a deep significance. i'd like to thank our guests, jo loria and randy critical for joining us today and for sharing their thoughts and reminiscences of their friend john filter. and thanks to our viewers for joining us for another episode of the whistle blowers, i'm john kerry onto we'll see you next time the. 2 2 the take a fresh look around, there's a life kaleidoscopic, isn't just a shifted reality distortion by power of tired vision with no real opinions. fixtures designed to simplify. it will confuse really once a better wills and is it just as a chosen for you. fractured images presented to this,

but can you see through their illusion going underground? can the boys are liberators? may god bless you with health and be your guardian angel. thank you. really for the vehicle off the russian forces take the city's following use of new life upon the input and control products of russia. ripples even more devices on the domestic republic, on the side rise above the southern dogs and the city of rough. uh 7 people are killed by the is there any movie or the last place left for more than a 1000000 costs in this place in the, on the